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- StraighterLine Nabs $10M To Make College More Affordable Through Online Education
- We Are Our Scores: The Aspirational Self
- CEO Bloggers: To Blog or Not to Blog
- Open Office Hours With TechCrunch Europe
- How Kik Survived The Group Messaging Wars And Built A Sweet Mobile App For Controlling TVs
- Facebook Explains Why It’s Supporting Congress’ CISPA Cybersecurity Bill
- Death To The Gatekeepers: Bezos Talks Innovation In The Publishing Space
- Nokia Fixes Lumia 900 Data Woes Ahead Of Schedule With New Software Update
- Verify Now Lets Designers Test More Of Their Ideas In More Places
- SnapTerms: Terms Of Service As A Service
- After Three Years, Visual Voicemail Service YouMail Calls It Quits On BlackBerry
- I’ve Finally Found The Perfect iPhone Case: The Cygnett Icon
- The Other Sinister Plot At Groupon
- Microsoft Needs Your Help: Promises Free Software In Return For Windows 8 Feedback
- Nicholas Sparks On Using Tech To Write Books, Make Movies, And Keep A Creative Edge
- How The Pebble Smart Watch Hit $2 Million On Kickstarter [Q&A]
- Apple Patents A Tool Allowing Non-Developers To Build Apps
- Interesting: Law Firm Leading The Antitrust Charge Against Apple Shares A Seattle Address With Amazon
- HTC’s Entry-Level Golf Smartphone Spotted In Leaked Press Image
- Facebook Ups The Mobile Ante Again; Buys Mobile Loyalty, Rewards Startup TagTile
| StraighterLine Nabs $10M To Make College More Affordable Through Online Education Posted: 14 Apr 2012 08:46 AM PDT  A year ago, Peter Thiel called it a bubble. Whatever you call it, the cost of attaining a college degree has skyrocketed to the point of absurdity — to the point of one trillion red flags. Student debt in the U.S. recently pushed over $1 trillion, and the average debt per student now stands at more than $25K. (And 30 percent of students are more than 30 days overdue on payments.) StraighterLine, a Baltimore-based startup, is one of many young companies trying to find a solution to these rising costs, through online education. Founded in 2010, StraigherLine offers a low-cost, subscription-based service that allows students to take a variety of accredited, general ed courses online. And, now, with the goal of bringing its service to a wider audience, the startup has announced that it has raised $10 million in series A funding. The round of financing was led by New York venture firm FirstMark Capital, with contributions from City Light Capital and existing investor Chrysalis Ventures, among others. The company said that it will use its new capital to accelerate its outreach to colleges, employers, and students, and focus on building a viable, next-gen market for credit-bearing, web-based general ed courses. With unemployment remaining fairly high and with non-traditional students (older people, single mothers, workers retraining) returning to academia, competition for already-scant resources is growing. Institutions are struggling to carry the load. Yale recently decided to add 250 students to its incoming class, which cost the university a quarter of a billion dollars. Luckily, as online content distribution media have matured, the quality of online ed is fast-improving as a number of startups, like Khan Academy, 2tor, ShowMe, Udemy, Udacity, Grockit, Lynda.com, and the Minerva Project are all showing how video, mobile devices, games, and advanced web platforms can transform distance learning into low-cost, viable supplement (if not alternative) to on-campus learning. StraighterLine, too, is focused on bringing price transparency to online education, offering general ed courses that students generally take (and are often required) during their freshman and sophomore years, like Algebra, Biology, Calculus, U.S. History, and English Composition, to name a few — on the Web. If we say the average price for a private institution is about $32K per year, StraigherLine’s pricing compares favorably, with the option to pay $100 a month, plus $39 for each course started, $399 per course, or a full freshman year education for $1K. Included in this pricing is free live, on-demand instruction, although if students choose to buy a textbook, they have to do so separately. But the cool part is that the startup’s courses are ACE Credit recommended and can be transferred for credit to a number of degree granting institutions. Over 25 grant credit today, with more than 200 universities across the U.S. having accepted post-review. There aren’t yet many “big name” institutions accepting StraigherLine credits, and obviously it will be important for the startup to expand its list of participating universities if it hopes to reach the tipping point. But the model is certainly an appealing one, as it means that students can participate in a flexible, low-cost education and transfer into institutions that accept its courses for credit, significantly reducing the cost of a four-year degree. A degree that they eventually receive from the universities themselves, not StraighterLine. It’s also all about quality when it comes to online education, something 2tor has been religiously focused on and is raising big money to take the necessary steps to ensure. StraighterLine, on the other hand, doesn’t have to offer an Ivy League education like that which Minerva is setting out to build, as long as it offers those quality, prerequisite courses that students can knock out on their way to an on-campus degree. In this way, it can provide a great complement to community colleges and equivalent feeder programs into four-year institutions. The company said that it is working towards building out its platform so that it can begin to offer the kind of robust online education (multimedia, interactive content, live, on-demand instruction, employment resources, etc.) that is now expected of distance learning. It also plans to boost its offerings around placement, career training, and is hustling to engage the employer community so that its educational platform maintains relevance to students’ futures, beyond just being an easy way to knock out first-year requirements. The founder and CEO of StraighterLine, Burck Smith, has experience building online educational programs, having sold his online tutoring and support services company, SmartThinking to Pearson early last year. For more on StraighterLine, check ‘em out at home here.
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| We Are Our Scores: The Aspirational Self Posted: 14 Apr 2012 07:00 AM PDT  Editor’s note: Tim Chang is a managing director at Mayfield Fund. This is the third in a three-part series about the Quantified Self movement. Follow Tim on Twitter @timechange. I left off last time talking about how gamification and the Quantified Self — the use of sensors and devices to gather and analyze as much personal numeric data as possible for new insights into the self–can help us have fun while getting closer to our ideal selves. It's time to explore how that last idea has evolved in the past few years and how savvy entrepreneurs are putting it to work. Each of us has that picture of who we want to be and where we want to go. This is the version of ourselves we want the world to see. Convincing others that there is no gap between that image and our real selves used to be the domain of public relations professionals and doting parents. But in this era of social networks and constant connectivity, we all take the reins of our own reputations. This brings up what I refer to as the "Aspirational Self." It's what we do when we post to Facebook or Twitter — constructing and branding the person we want to be seen as, by portraying our most desirable qualities. You tweet on the Saturday night when you're at the club with Kanye, not the following Saturday when your date cancels and you wind up doing the laundry you've put off for two weeks. (In many ways, social media itself is an implicit "game," in which failed status updates and tweets are the ones which attract no comments or likes…) Quantifying the Aspirational Self So how do we further our Aspirational Selves? On social networks, we solicit "likes," "shares" and "follows," which are forms of approval and validation by others. Tallying those affirmations enables us to be ranked, attract a following, and achieve more perceived respect. This same need and new ability to practically measure and score our lives are what drives the Quantified Self movement. The Aspirational Self and the Quantified Self dovetail to create a kind of feedback loop that drives self-promotional behavior in the user on social networks. Some of the smartest new companies have taken this aspect of the social networking explosion and used it as leverage on consumer behavior. The results are striking. Bringing it to market The healthcare industry has always sought effective ways to motivate patients to actively improve their habits. With that goal in mind, Healthtap enables consumers to ask questions of more than 10,000 certified U.S. doctors through a free mobile app. But despite how impressive and useful this is for end users, the company's real spark of genius lies in how they leverage the root desires of the doctors through this notion of the Aspirational Self. Doctors carefully answer consumer questions in the hopes of attracting "Agrees" from their peers. It's a participation model driven not by monetary incentives, but instead by the identification and public validation or their individual sub-specialties. It turns out that while doctors may care what consumers and patients think of them, they care even more about what fellow physicians think of them. The more doctors "level up" in their specialties, the more their expertise and status is highlighted, leading to a better "score" that can be seen by other doctors and patients — an important consideration in attracting new patients or winning respect from fellow healthcare professionals. Beyond the health sector, we're starting to see the Aspirational Self being used to engage consumers in other areas of their lives. Poshmark, a fashion app that enables users to sell their clothing directly to other users, takes what people do offline and heightens the experience with more measurable behaviors. People can host virtual "trunk shows" that many users can attend online. To attract enough buyers to their shows, hosts actively build up their reputation in the Poshmark community through likes, agrees, and followers. Aspiring fashionistas—or just women who want to sell a seldom-worn skirt—can become curators and emerging style icons, building up a following of their own, just by using the app regularly. Multiplayer Marketing We've reached the era of the Quantified Self — and quantified respect, too. Facebook and Twitter helped set this loose, and now it's time for entrepreneurs to harness it and make it work. The implications for advertising are huge–what better way for a product or brand to reach new users than a recommendation from a consumer rated as an expert by his peers? The implication for the consumer and his Aspirational Self are just as huge. If I buy one pair of an exclusive run of 200 Air Jordan sneakers, the first thing I'm going to do is tell people I got them. The purchase and the subsequent sharing of that purchase both become steps in attaining that Aspirational Self. Product promotion and self-promotion become intertwined, and, as the old ad slogan goes, they're two tastes that taste great together. [image via flickr/Michael Pick]
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| CEO Bloggers: To Blog or Not to Blog Posted: 14 Apr 2012 04:00 AM PDT  Editor's note: Contributor Ashkan Karbasfrooshan is the founder and CEO of WatchMojo, he hosts a show on business and has published books on success. Follow him @ashkan. "Where do you get the time to write so much as a company CEO, and more importantly, shouldn't you be closing deals or doing something more useful?" Fair enough. Do What Comes Naturally To You Some entrepreneurs are technologists, others are salespeople, a few are storytellers. The best coders don't stop coding even if they run the company. The best cooks never stop cooking even when they open their restaurant. Musicians are always jamming no matter what. Similarly, a storyteller doesn't put the pen down because he's in pursuit of profit, too. He finds a way to marry the two. If you enjoy writing and happen to be the CEO, then it’s a marriage made in heaven if you can balance your duties. Regardless of your craft, once you're an entrepreneur, you're the eternal cheerleader, finding yourself shilling one thing or another. It comes with the territory. When it comes to writing articles – be it on industry publications or on your company/personal blog – it's actually ineffective to come across as a booster. You're better off developing your voice as a contrarian that highlights the macro opportunity in a more realistic and sober way. If you can pull that off, writing will pay dividends, but you will have to address the odd doubter who may wonder if you're wasting your time writing. The Obvious Reasons for Blogging #1 – Own Thyself Anthony Robbins put it best when he said: "We're defined by the stories we tell ourselves." Indeed, in a world where others' perception of you is a function of a Google query, you need to own your online presence, especially as we move away from the Algorithm to an increasingly social world. #2 – Influence, Authority, and Brand Value is driven by goodwill (defined simply as the value of your brand). Brand building is an exercise done through B2B and B2C initiatives. B2B tools include trade advertising, press releases, the conference circuit as well as writing about the industry you're in (and as the CEO of a startup, lessons in entrepreneurship and management, as well). You are competing with many others, some of whom the press will be more enamored with. PR is one of the tools in your arsenal to level the playing field. However, the industry's three worst-kept secrets are: - Press releases are ineffective and generally viewed as noise. - Blogs are always looking for more content, so they tend to welcome new guest authors. - Traditional industry publications are seeing their resources reduced, so they will rely on social media and writers on blogs more than ever, creating an opportunity for you to land on big name websites. In any case, once they decide to start writing, initially many executives offer their worldview on their company blogs. This is a sound strategy early-on as you test the waters and hone your style and skill. Before long, publishing on your own blog yields diminishing returns as you won't cut through the clutter. As you migrate to publishing on third-party sites, you have to invest the time to embrace and learn the sites’ editorial voice. Then, once you clear that hurdle, you face a cynical audience that assumes you're merely shilling. To win them over, you need at least three things: impartiality, authority and repetition, but oftentimes to accomplish any success you need to invest way too much time. It certainly is worth it though, in ways you may find surprising. Less Well-Known Benefits of Becoming the Chief Pontificator #3 – Leave Your Staff Alone The cardinal sin many CEOs make is micromanaging and suffocating talented employees. Worst even, many try to manage what they don't understand. This isn't always a result of ego or bad faith. True, some CEOs have a tendency to think they are the lord's gift to management and their "hands-on" experience knows no boundaries and as such they over-extend themselves. But frequently it's because they're bored. #4 – Bide your time Everything takes longer than anticipated. You submit a proposal, then wait. You ask one of your lieutenants to work on something, then wait. More often than not, CEOs find themselves waiting even though few would be considered patient. As such, CEOs look for things to focus their attention to. Effective blogging will keeping a CEO busy and avoid him from micromanaging staff and lieutenants, allowing even the best of teams the time and freedom to do their job. Externally, conventional wisdom suggests that you spend all of your time closing deals. But, the fact is: blogging will be the best lead generator you can imagine, and the point isn't to sign as many deals as possible, it's to sign the right deals under the right terms. Developing a reputation as an industry leader will enable that. #5 – Efficiency CEOs field the same questions and repeat answers to multiple stakeholders all the time. Verbal communication is undervalued these days, but people don't listen, so sending an article that you wrote (and one that was published on a leading and respected publication) is a powerful way to convey the message. Blogging is also far more efficient and effective than attending conferences. As one industry acquaintance once told me, conferences are akin to AA meetings where you sit around and realize everyone else has the same problems you do. Pick an industry, any industry – chances are that if you compare the speaker and panelists you will find the same people across the board. Writing on a big platform allows you to reach far more people than attending conferences will, and it will save you tens of thousands of dollars. #6 – Shutting Up The best part of writing so much is that when you meet people, there’s a good chance they’ve read your work, so you can shut up and listen, letting others do the talking because you don’t need to shill and give them your pitch. #7 – Learn To publish, you not only need to research your topic, but you need to distill a lot of information into a coherent and cohesive argument or summary. But the true learning starts after you press publish and readers chime in via email, in the comments section and on counter-posts. Yes, Writing is Risky (but so is eating shellfish, get over it) A word to the wise: - You want to avoid giving your team the impression that you're communicating through [the Word]Press (even when you are). - People will misinterpret you. That's their problem, not yours. But be prepared for it. - You can divulge too much (perhaps, but no one really cares about you that much anyway). - Sure, it’s nice to build your personal brand, but the focus ought to be on the company – 100% of the time. There are risks, but writing is one way to strike balance against the rigors of entrepreneurship. After all, if you wake up in the morning and are greeted with bad news, don't worry too much because you're bound to get worst news later on in the day. And if ever you are greeted with some good news, enjoy it cause it won't last, something is bound to go awry. That’s the startup life. It’s the end result that matters most (while the journey is a learning experience to you, too). Writing gives you the perspective to be able to see through the trees. To quote Steve Jobs, “you can’t connect the dots looking forward“, but provided writing comes naturally to you, then over time you look back and realize why it always made sense. When it's said and done, blogging is a means to an end, so long as it helps you accomplish your objectives, keep writing no matter what some may say. Eventually you realize you no longer need to blog. Then, you can put the pen down and step away from the machine, (or not).
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| Open Office Hours With TechCrunch Europe Posted: 14 Apr 2012 01:50 AM PDT  Doing meetups and attending conferences is great for uncovering new startups and entrepreneurs, but sometimes you just want to sit down over coffee for a few minutes and explain what you’re doing. So I’m starting a new series of one-to-one sessions which will hopefully be fairly regular (schedule allowing). I’ll be doing “Open Office Hours” sessions at various locations associated with startups, and as I’m based in London that’s where I’ll mainly be doing them. The idea is you apply for a slot and wait for confirmation. This isn’t about long meetings, it’s more about getting a quick heads-up and then following up later. Next week I’ll be at startup space White Bear Yard, home to Passion Capital and a number of their startups. You can sign up for a slot here. The next session after that will be at Innovation Warehouse, slots here. To follow other sessions, here’s my OHours profile or follow me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.
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| How Kik Survived The Group Messaging Wars And Built A Sweet Mobile App For Controlling TVs Posted: 13 Apr 2012 06:04 PM PDT  If a consumer mobile fad comes and goes, and you don’t play consolidation musical chairs, what do you do next? This is kind of what happened to Kik, a Canadian startup that took off with the explosive growth of its messaging app last year. Amid the hype around messaging, Kik raised $8 million in funding from RRE Ventures, Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures. Not too long after, Kik’s rivals Beluga and GroupMe got acquired in some respectable (but not crazy huge) deals by Facebook and Skype last year. Meanwhile, Kik has stayed independent and is charting a completely different course. About two months ago, they launched Clik, a mobile app that lets you control a TV right from your phone. There are a few steps to making it work, but the major plus to Clik is that it doesn’t require additional hardware. You point your desktop or smart TV browser at ClikThis.com, which generates a unique QR code (a two-dimensional barcode). Then you open the Clik iPhone or Android app, aim the camera at the screen, and the phone syncs to the TV or computer. Once they’re connected, you can use your phone like a remote control to play YouTube videos on your TV. You can see a demo here: So now the company has two major products under its belt: the messaging app Kik and the TV app Clik. There are no plans to spin either product out of the company. Chief executive Ted Livingston says this isn’t a pivot. Really. Kik is very much alive and well with 10 million registered users and 1 billion messages sent per month. It’s maintained a Top 25 ranking in the social networking category in the U.S., according to App Annie, and it currently has a better rank than high-profile apps like Path and Foursquare. The issue is that messaging is a service that could be easily cannibalized by Apple’s iMessages, Facebook Messenger or any change in the way the carriers handle SMS. But the company’s other product Clik addresses a real hole in the market because most TV controllers are horribly designed. That’s the part that has a real revenue opportunity. Plus, Clik has attracted interest from more than 100 potential partners that want to explore using it for video or gaming. “Clik has had huge response from developers who see it as a white-label version of Apple’s AirPlay,” Livingston said. Since Kik has the user base that most mobile developers could only dream of having, the idea is to use Kik to cross-promote and seed Clik’s usage. “We think that Kik will provide viral distribution for Clik,” Livingston said. “We look at Kik as a way to get content from person to person and Clik as a way to get content from person to screen.” Livingston says that Clik is actually a return to the company’s original vision. You see, back when the company started in 2009, it had the vision of making music very easy to play and share between phones and desktop computers. But licensing from the music labels is a pain, so they used the technology to build a messaging app instead. Now that messaging has had its moment in the sun, it’s time to move on. “We always thought that group messaging was a fad,” Livingston said. “We never looked at Kik as a social network. We always looked at it as a way to get content from person-to-person.” Livingston has shown off Clik in a couple different ways. You can use it to send a YouTube playlist on your TV directly from your smartphone. You can also use Clik to play a game on a TV using an iPhone or Android device as the controller, which has piqued the interest of game developers. “We’re looking at the entire stack and how to enable pre-existing experiences to be transferred from the phone to the browser,” he said. Kik should remain free indefinitely, but there will probably be some kind of freemium revenue model behind Clik for partners. And if Apple launches an iTV? Well, that’s just extra marketing for Clik, since Apple would probably pursue a closed solution that would only work on its devices. “The rumors around the Apple TV and awareness around AirPlay has been great for us,” he said. “We let you connect any phone to any screen and we’re open.”
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| Facebook Explains Why It’s Supporting Congress’ CISPA Cybersecurity Bill Posted: 13 Apr 2012 05:14 PM PDT  Facebook today explained why it has taken a positive stance on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or “CISPA”, bill currently under consideration in the United States Congress. The social networking company is one of a group of tech companies that have announced support for CISPA — Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, IBM, and Symantec are also among its backers. In a post today on the official blog for Facebook’s Washington D.C. office, the company’s U.S. public policy VP Joel Kaplan wrote that there are a number of bills being considered by Congress at the moment that would notify companies like Facebook when the US government knows there is a “critical threat” of a cyber attack. Facebook is supporting CISPA, he said, in part because it would not make Facebook share any more of its own data than is currently required:
Kaplan did acknowledge the criticism that CISPA has attracted from those who say the bill is along the same lines as SOPA in terms of the potential threat to individual privacy and freedom on the web (the reasons for this scrutiny are articulated pretty well by this Lifehacker post.) SOPA was, of course, the proposed anti-piracy legislation that ultimately foundered after coming under incredibly intense scrutiny from the tech community and beyond. Critics say Facebook’s support of CISPA is suspect, considering that the company came out publicly against SOPA. But Kaplan vowed that Facebook is committed to defending its users privacy, and that its support for CISPA is in line with that value:
There will certainly be more developments here as time goes on, but one thing seems for certain: The government has set its sights on the world wide web, and more legislation is coming to the space one way or another. Here’s hoping the larger tech industry is not too fatigued from its fight against SOPA and PIPA — it will be important to stay vigilant about the potential impact of the bills that are yet to come. If you oppose Facebook’s backing of CISPA, there is a petition to ask the company to rescind its support for the bill here.
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| Death To The Gatekeepers: Bezos Talks Innovation In The Publishing Space Posted: 13 Apr 2012 04:31 PM PDT  The heart of Jeff Bezos’ mission has always to circumvent the traditional “gatekeepers” of commerce. He started with books, an industry ripe for disruption, and moved onto, well, everything else. At this point, his vision has come true. The old gatekeepers in the book sales cycle are on the ropes and electronics companies are already planning to collude in order to maintain a “minimum” accepted price, thereby ensuring Amazon doesn’t eat all of their lunch. But Amazon is hungry and, like Plainview, they have a long straw. They won’t just eat the world’s lunch, they’ll drink its milkshake, too. The recent lawsuits against Apple and various publishers are a testament to Amazon’s power. Publishers won’t accept that their product can be sold at Amazon’s prices and Amazon won’t accept that the product can’t be sold at a price that reflects the market. We are, after all, just talking bits shipped to devices and $1,000 made in 1,000 ninety-nine cent increments is the same as $1,000 made in one-hundred $10 increments. Amazon, for the longest time, served as a final lifeline for the paper publishing industry and it seems that this legal move is a way to strip the last vestige of respect from those gatekeepers who, for far too long, made the sale of ideas a process of getting widgets onto shelves. Like the CD makers before them, they just don’t want to give up what has served the industry for so long and so lucratively. But this is just the beginning. In his letter to investors, Bezos writes: I am emphasizing the self-service nature of these platforms because it's important for a reason I think is somewhat non-obvious: even well-meaning gatekeepers slow innovation. When a platform is self-service, even the improbable ideas can get tried, because there's no expert gatekeeper ready to say "that will never work!" And guess what – many of those improbable ideas do work, and society is the beneficiary of that diversity. Arguably, Bezos isn’t a very sympathetic character. His company makes a lot of money and, if we really thought about it enough, we’d realize that he’s a bigger threat to the Mom and Pop stores than even Wal-Mart. At least Wal-Mart helps rural areas retain a sense of community. Amazon is a black box – money in, products delivered. You could live off of Amazon and never leave your house, given enough patience and a good bit of cash. But it’s this mentality – that you don’t need to roll down to Borders for a book or a movie, that you don’t need to hit the student book exchange to get fleeced on a statistics textbook – that really makes sense in a world where most discourse and commerce is happening online anyway. To hold onto the old ways for sake of the old ways is conservative, to be sure, but it’s also a suicide pact with the writers and creators you’re championing. Even more than Jobs, Bezos is intent on blowing up the publishing industry. Tim Carmody at Wired writes “He doesn't care whether Apple, publishers or anyone else stands in the way,” and this is absolutely true. Call him a zealot, but when’s the last time you drove down to the local bookstore and didn’t think that soon this empire of the mind would be gone, replaced by something Gutenberg wouldn’t couldn’t fathom in his wildest imagination? Heck, when’s the last time you drove down to the local bookstore at all?
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| Nokia Fixes Lumia 900 Data Woes Ahead Of Schedule With New Software Update Posted: 13 Apr 2012 04:30 PM PDT  Nokia certainly didn’t waste any time when it came to fixing that pesky data connection bug that popped up in a few first-run Lumia 900s. Just two days after Nokia acknowledged the issue and pledged to make things right, they’ve already made that critical update available to those in need. In case you were keeping track, that’s a full three days before Nokia promised to have the fix in the field. Not too shabby, Nokia. The cynic in me wants to say that the Finnish phone giant could have talked up the original date in order to give understandably upset customers a pleasant surprise, but all that really matters is that the update is out and the Lumia 900′s first crisis is over. If you haven’t already swapped out for handset for a less screwy one, all it takes to perform the update is plug it into your computer — if you’ve already got the Zune software (for PCs) or the Windows Phone 7 Connector (for Mac) installed, you’ll be prompted to update and that’s that. Those of you on the fence about buying a Lumia 900 may as well bite the bullet now. Nokia’s rather awesome $100 bill credit will continue to run until the 21st and a little scouting around will ensure that you fiscally come out ahead. Perhaps more importantly, customers didn’t have to rely on AT&T for a fix, a trend that hopefully continues for any major updates that should come down the line. AT&T has proven themselves to be a little lax when it comes to pushing updates to Windows Phones, but with Nokia once again gunning for some American limelight, they may try and fill in any of those gaps themselves.
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| Verify Now Lets Designers Test More Of Their Ideas In More Places Posted: 13 Apr 2012 03:32 PM PDT  Interaction design and strategy firm ZURB has turned more and more of its internal apps into products for other designers over the last few years. Among these products is Verify, a handy little tool that allows design firms to quickly collect and analyze user feedback on screenshots and mockups. With Verify, for example, a startup could test multiple versions of its homepage or logo and see which one people like best, where they click and even what they remember about the site. Today, ZURB launched the latest version of this tool, which includes two major new features: multivirate testing and multi-device support, allowing developers and designers to test their designs on the actual devices they are intended for. Verify already allowed its users to test new designs with the help of a battery of different tests, including basic preference tests, a mood test (what feelings does this screenshot evoke?) and a memory test (what do your users remember about your site after looking at it for 5 seconds?). Once a test is completed, the designers get access to a detailed report with all the necessary statistics. Until now, these tests only allowed ZURB’s users to pitch two different designs against each other. With this new version, users can now try out multiple variations of their designs and see how their testers react to them. These mulitvariate tests are now available for all the currently available tests on Verify. ZURB offers a free 30-day trial for Verify and its paid plans start at $19/month. It’s worth noting that multivariate testing is only available with a $99/month premium plan.
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| SnapTerms: Terms Of Service As A Service Posted: 13 Apr 2012 03:01 PM PDT  You might not think that something like a website’s Terms of Service would be all that interesting, but you’d be wrong. After that post about how awesome 500px’s Terms of Service are (tl;dr: they translate them into human speak), the inbox kind of blew up with questions. Is anyone else doing this?, emailers wanted to know, can I talk to them? (Also: hey, stupid, Aviary has done this forever. Thank you, thank you, and yes, the post is updated.) Regardless, one email stood out from the crowd. It described a newly launched legal service called SnapTerms, which provides startups with simple, reasonably priced, and personalized Terms of Service and Privacy Policies. The Sarasota-based company, only a few months old, was founded as a side project by legal entrepreneurs Mike Kolb and Aaron Kelly, the latter who’s an attorney specializing in Internet law. With the SnapTerms service, startup founders on limited budgets have an alternative to the naughty little practice of copy-and-pasting from another website’s Terms of Service or having to dive deep into their own pockets to pay a lawyer thousands of dollars via billable hours. Explains Kolb, SnapTerms is sort of the sweet spot right in between the copy-and-pasting and paying big bucks. At SnapTerms, users can choose from one of the three different packages: a Pro plan ($149) offering Terms of Service and a Privacy Policy; a Pro Plus plan ($299) that adds a few things like a complete site review, support for sites that take credit cards, and a 30 minute consultation; and finally, a Custom Plan (starting at $299), which adds COPPA compliance support, and support for SaaS companies. The plans offer different levels of support for revisions, too. For example, on the basic plan, you get one revision within the first 48 hours. On the mid-level plan, it’s one within the first three month. (Custom plans vary). Oh, and they can also make your Terms funny, so your customers will actually read them. For an example of how funny legalese can get, you can check out SnapTerms’ own Terms here. Kelly has experience writing terms for sites other than startups, including celebrity fan sites, affiliate, e-commerce, diet sites, and more, so the company isn’t limited to supporting early stage startups, although it does have a couple of startups that have been featured here on TechCrunch as paying customers. Attorney-client privilege means I can’t blog about which ones unless they give word, so we’ll update if any agree to come out of hiding. In the meantime, you can check out Photodropper, Sevacall, or Murderdate for some current, legally-approved examples. SnapTerms has about 100 clients to date, despite not having done press or having advertised (save for once on Startups.com). Almost all the sign-ups have been word of mouth, Kolb tells me. Assuming this takes off, Kolb says they may expand to offer a network of lawyers, many of whom would likely do the work on the side. Address a need. Fulfill it for an affordable price. Not a bad idea, SnapTerms. Not bad at all.
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| After Three Years, Visual Voicemail Service YouMail Calls It Quits On BlackBerry Posted: 13 Apr 2012 01:51 PM PDT  Freemium visual voicemail service YouMail never forgot their roots — they first launched in late 2007 with the mission of making visual voicemail available to the masses, but soon focused their attention on what was then the market-leading smartphone platform: BlackBerry. I don't need to tell you that RIM's fortunes have changed since then, but the YouMail crew dutifully updated their BlackBerry app even though registrations from users of that platform began to dip. Until now, that is. With one final (and seemingly substantive) update in place though, YouMail has officially decided to call it quits on BlackBerry. It's a bittersweet moment for YouMail, as same rep tells me that the release of their BlackBerry app in 2009 was what really put the company on the map. Since then, the company made a name for itself among Android users and racked up some considerable funding (disclosure: CrunchFund invested in these guys last year) along the way. These days, YouMail's userbase is over 2 million strong, and a company representative me tells that they handle 15 million calls each month. Their Android app (you know for everyone who doesn't have Google Voice) accounts for the lion's share of accounts, but once-considerable support from BlackBerry users has dwindled to the point where a third-party developer using their API to bring visual voicemail to Windows Phone users is more widely used. What this really has me thinking is how many other developers have decided to shutter their BlackBerry efforts due to lack of momentum? YouMail joins a few other notable companies that have chosen to shift their focus elsewhere. Popular travel site Kayak did just that earlier this year, and Seesmic pulled the same thing in mid-2011. RIM would probably disagree on that — Alec Saunders, the company's VP of developer relations delivered a rousing address at this year's BlackBerry DevCon Europe that talked up just how popular and profitable the BlackBerry app environment is. That may be so (I don't know that I buy all of his points), but as a whole, the BlackBerry platform has slowly fallen out of limelight. The forthcoming BlackBerry 10 operating system and the devices that run it could change all that, but until it makes its debut later this year, we’ll just have to wait and see if any more developers leave the BlackBerry platform for greener pastures.
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| I’ve Finally Found The Perfect iPhone Case: The Cygnett Icon Posted: 13 Apr 2012 01:20 PM PDT  One of the best things about the iPhone is its design. It’s beautiful — slim, sleek, and finished in piano black with a hint of brushed aluminum. Sometimes I just stare at it. But there’s a big problem: the iPhone is less than durable. It loses in almost every drop test, and will shatter the first time it slips out of your hands. The answer of course is a great case, but most of them ruin the beautiful shape and size of the phone, covering it with grubby rubber or scratched-up metal or cheapo plastic. It effectively ruins one of the greatest selling points of the phone, and it’s always pissed me off to be quite frank with you. But the other day I found my dream case, and I couldn’t stop myself from telling you about it. It’s the Cygnett Icon Art series case, which I stole from my boss John. And it’s perfect. To start, the case fits against the iPhone so closely that the size and shape of the device is not even barely compromised. The case itself is super thin, and it pops on easily and stays there. I’ve found that many iPhone cases that snap on (as opposed to being two parts connecting, or a rubber case that you slide the phone into) are actually kind of dangerous for the phone. My old Speck case made me nervous every time I took it off the phone, and the instructions even confirmed that if I didn’t do it the right way, I may damage the volume buttons. Then there’s the material that the Cygnett Icon case is made of. It’s a plastic case, but it’s finished with a rubberized coating that is super soft to the touch. I sometimes find people who borrow my phone simply petting it, and I pet it too. I’d even go so far as to say that it’s a step up from the glossy iPhone paneling. Last but certainly not least, the Cygnett Icon case performs well. Most cases that don’t have a significant ridge around the screen tend to fail. I’ve shattered enough iPhones to know this. But I’ve dropped my precious while it was wearing the Icon enough times to be confident when I say that you won’t damage your phone when it’s in this case. John is also using a Cygnett on his iPhone 4S: the Urban Shield. His phone also maintains the shape and size, and his offers even more protection according to the website. But when I’m already fully protected by my Icon, I don’t feel all that jealous.
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| The Other Sinister Plot At Groupon Posted: 13 Apr 2012 01:02 PM PDT  Editor’s note: Surya Yalamanchili was previously a brand manager at Procter & Gamble and has worked at LinkedIn and Groupon. Follow him on Twitter @suryasays. I love Silicon Valley. Love almost everything about the technology ecosystem. I grew up in New Jersey watching with extreme envy and wonderment as the '95-01 boom-bust played out. Like most, I also share a certain reverence for Steve Jobs. Unfortunately, the Valley tends to indulge in one of the less enviable Jobsian traits: the shithead/hero rollercoaster. People and companies are always one or the other. We glorify when it's smooth sailing and bash mercilessly during turbulence. Groupon has taken the entire ride. From wonder boy CEO and "fastest growing company ever" to becoming the evil company out to defraud merchants/investors. Now that I'm no longer directly affiliated with the company (other than being a locked-up shareholder), I thought it would be nice to provide a little balance. There's plenty that's been said on the negative side of the ledger — no doubt inspired by a righteous desire to protect the little-guy merchant and investor and not at all fueled by a desire for Twitter followers or endless TV appearances. Outside of karmic balance, I also care about the company itself and for my friends there. A recent occurrence is that I'm also tired of conveying much of this content in response to questions. Last week alone, I got 5 inbounds from people who could potentially have a relationship to Groupon and who want to know "just how bad it is inside the company." These conversations don't scale, and as I dug deeper, I saw just how loud and effective the shrill cries of the critic have become. For the record, I'm not trying to lay out a pro-Groupon case here. That's because I really don't care/want you to buy shares, love the company, go work there, or whatever. I just want there to be another signal amongst the litany of noise on the company for intelligent people who want to form their own judgements. Groupon is a strange company. It just is. Start with Andrew, a very charismatic, quirky CEO. Then take the unusual nature of their first investors (vs just investing, they become co-founders and partner with you) and their past business history. Corporate employee count and revenue base basically multiplied like rabbits. The international growth under the leadership of the infamous Samwer brothers was unprecedented. The massive fundraising rounds with large insider sales by early investors. Turning down a $4-6B acquisition after only 2 years in business. The very model had a simplistic appearance that appeared to lack a defensible element. The newly created accounting terms invented to share key business metrics with the outside world. The incredibly confounding Super Bowl ads that absolutely no one seemed to like. A COO who, in less than six months, made a Google-Groupon sandwich. Any one of these plotlines are interesting enough alone. Together? A strange, fascinating company. It's a Rorschach test, really. You could pretty much see anything you want if you look hard enough. Currently the ink-blot looks sinister (much self-inflicted) to pundits, a picture worthy of scorn and suspicion. While not actively seeking to change opinions, I do hope to provide additional context. Since context changes perception, that inkblot might look a little different by the end. So here are some things that are no less true than the negatives, but get much less attention: 1) Groupon has put together a fantastically well-credentialed, experienced management team. The negative press constructs a narrative of a shortsighted enterprise hell-bent on ripping-off merchants and investors alike. The biggest problem with this contention, though, is the people. They've not only knowingly signed up to join the company, but they play also play a direct role in steering it. Groupon isn't some faceless Borg ship; it's full of Picards and Rikers. It is gospel in the Valley that people and culture are the most critical component to a company because they mostly determine outcomes. If one accepts this premise, what follows should matter heavily. Jason Child, CFO: Jason is a veteran of Amazon and basically ran international finance there. His resume (but, really, resumes are dead, I mean LinkedIn profile) speaks for itself, but first-hand he's one of the smartest, most thoughtful executives I've ever worked with. With the recent accounting restatement, there is a lot of, understandable, apprehension over financial controls/situation. Jason is clearly in the spotlight as head of finance*, but for what its worth, I trust the guy completely. He's got his work cut out for him, but if the job is doable, he'll get it done. Rich Williams, SVP Marketing: Rich also worked at Amazon running worldwide customer acquisition, etc. Other than my close friend Gedioen, Rich is the other person I take in a marketing draft to save my life. He got in the weeds of user acquisition/conversion numbers and also was a clear voice on the brand challenges. David Schellhase, General Counsel: David was Counsel for Benioff at Salesforce for 9 years. Yeah, that pretty much says it all. David's a badass. A man of few words, but incredible presence he immediately got to work on all things litigation and compliance. Skipp Schipper, SVP HR: Skipp (or "Brian" as, randomly, I just discovered is his first name according to his LI profile) was the global head of HR at Cisco. Yes, that Cisco Systems. Trying to be an agile Internet company while you have 10K+ employees spread out all over the globe is intense. It kind of helps that Cisco has 70K+ employees all over the globe, and Skipp has been there, done that. Jeff Holden, SVP Products: Sometimes things are so interesting, that you only need one sentence: Jeff worked with Jeff BEZOS at DE Shaw, then joined Amazon in 1997 (!), and ran all of consumer for Amazon before founding his company, which was eventually acqui-hired by Groupon. There is, of course, much other great talent. There's Hoyoung Pak, who is, not just an operations ninja, but literally, an actual ninja. He joined as I was leaving, but I was struck by his thoughtful, calm discipline in turning Groupon's far-flung (and often undisciplined) operations into something approaching world-class. The list goes on…Aaron, former-roommate Jason, Brian, Mihir… Look at their backgrounds and think about whether they'd join or be party to a willful scam. Or if you were a company that was basically imploding would you hire such smart, powerful, influential people or instead more middling talents who you could hide the truth from? 2) Groupon has been building a ton of lower-margin, high-value tools for merchants. Groupon Scheduler, so merchants can more efficiently schedule their appointments not only from deals, but everyday business. Groupon Rewards, a loyalty program to help drive repeat business from deals and otherwise. Groupon Now! to drive demand during off-peak times. The pattern here is that whether you use Daily Deals or not, these are tools to help your business. Daily Deals is the golden egg with huge margins for Groupon unlikely to be found in future offerings. That clearly doesn't scare Groupon off from trying to meet merchant needs because being the ecosystem for local business requires massive scale and providing massive value. These are small steps in trying to deliver that. Success here unlocks massive value for Groupon (and its merchant partners), which they are clearly demonstrating they understand. Then there are the massive amounts of talent acquisitions (by Groupon's incredible Corp Dev staff led by Jason and close friend Tom) that are no doubt building the next generation of great products. 3) Groupon has massive ongoing merchant relationships. If Groupon was such an evil company and so bad for local merchants – why are tens of thousands of these local businesses still actively working with them? As a national populace, we lionize small business owners. Do we only believe that they don't know what's in their best interest when it comes to the "evil Groupon"? That's a bit insane. In every major city in America, a large number of very prominent local fixtures have repeatedly chosen to feature their businesses on Groupon. Are we really supposed to believe that these businesses are actively working against their self-interest? If you do, then I actively encourage you to embrace President Barack Obama's radical socialist agenda for America** to help save them from themselves. Or if you believe that these businesses have no choice but to run a Groupon or face insolvency (wait, what?) then by that logic isn't Groupon doing everyone a favor by helping these businesses bridge this cataclysmic chasm? It's hard to divine any kind of logic here. The numbers and facts of repeat, free-market choices by local merchants defy all cohesive argument. Now two myths/misconceptions: 1) Groupon is an awful, easily replicable business that is toast once "the real" competition arrives. This is the meme that refuses to die, but should, if only to give this amazing Hillary Tumblr the room it needs to thrive. But the clear consensus was that Groupon would die shortly from the clones because there was no moat.*** To be honest, when I joined Groupon this was the point that I was most ill at ease about. But when you take a breath, and look at reality, what's happened? Yelp, probably the strongest brand in local merchant discovery, abandoned the deals business. Facebook, the stickiest web property in history, shut down shop quite quickly. Google has, it seems, gained zero traction. LivingSocial after surging has faded a bit (but still a great company). Amazon is still sorting things out, but clearly hasn't cracked the nut. The hundreds of local clones have mostly gone quietly into the cold night. Those are facts, not theory. Finally, as critics love to say that the very "daily deal" model with its discounting and revenue splits is disgusting and evil (!). It's apparently predatory. That must be why two public companies with valuations in the nine digits, Amazon and Google, seem to be stumbling all over themselves doing their darndest right now to try and exactly replicate it. Yes, clearly it is intrinsically evil (bad for local merchants!) and has no barriers to entry (will crumble as soon as anyone of substance enters!). Right. 2) Groupon is doomed! – The critics were right, just look at its stock price and all the negative press. GRPN is admittedly trading at a disappointing $13ish. That earnings restatement hurt****, no doubt. Of course those who have made a PR career off Groupon are using all of this to declare victory, repeatedly pat themselves on the back, and let everyone know that they've "been right all along." Unfortunately just looking at the stock price ignores history. I've been lucky enough to have worked at two pre-IPO companies. LinkedIn and, obviously, Groupon. LinkedIn traded to a high of 120+ and dropped to the mid-50′s. This meant absolutely nothing about LNKD's core business. Nothing. My point is just that stock performance doesn't make any kind of demonstrable point. Signal? Sure. Point? No. Second, just because the torrent of current herd opinion is against GRPN doesn't turn it into truth. Why? How about this bit from the WSJ:
Written about Groupon? Nope. PayPal. 10 years ago. What else? Well, PayPal paid its users $10 to join, $10 to existing members for a referral. This led Reid to once remark that they would actually decrease their burn rate, if they switched to throwing $100 bills from the roof. Yet, as uncomfortable as it was, it was a high-risk, high-reward strategy to winning a massive market. I'm not saying Groupon is PayPal. I'm not saying Groupon is LinkedIn. Those are two phenomenal businesses with the most precious of all advantages: network effects. While being the plumbing for local merchants seems network-y, ultimately we'll have to wait and see. Regardless, we need to stop, breathe, and look around. There are clearly parallels. At this point, you've been with me for 4 hours reading this. We've exited the part where I've tried to help you understand a bit about the company (and now I'll try to stop typing because my fingers are cramping). If you've come this far, you might be wondering about my time with Groupon. I led the merchant group. That was basically everything non-sales that involved a merchant. This meant I worked on merchant marketing programs, new merchant tools and delivered sanctimonious speeches to the entire sales force about how important our merchants were to us. It was an incredible, great role, surrounded by amazing people at a very important time in the company's history. I love the people and my time there. Why did I leave? Part of it was that coming off my 18-month congressional sojourn, I wasn't sure I wanted to commit myself to Chicago/a large company and from the first introduction from Reid to Andrew we structured as temporary/interim leadership. When I joined, neither Rich, Jeff, or Hoyoung (all mentioned above) were a part of Groupon. All of them quickly grew into invaluable partners and functional mentors once they did join though. They innately grasped the importance of merchants to our long-term success. Late summer, I brought to Andrew the idea of elevating the Merchant role or splintering the group functionally to these various heads, and he chose the latter. It's hard for me to argue with his choice given how talented the team is. So folks who worked on my team in product, marketing, and operations spun out into these various heads. Always nursing a certain international wanderlust, I debated a role that was offered to move to Dublin to play (probably not so nicely) with the Samwers. Ultimately, I decided that I had already learned a ridiculous amount and was sliding down the curve of diminishing returns in learning and skills, and wanted to move on to what was next. Today when friends see all the negative news about the company, they expect that I'd be happy I left. On the contrary I often look back wistfully, part of me misses Groupon and wishes I were still there side-by-side with my friends. Last, this post is sort of intentionally obnoxiously long. Why? Because I'd really rather not write another. I don't aspire to be the "Groupon guy". And so, to recap, I'm not trying to sell you on Groupon.***** I just want folks to take a breath and form their own opinion. The innate herd mentality combined with the echo chamber that is Silicon Valley can be a doozy. But after reading this, maybe a few of might think that Groupon has actually, maybe, done one or two things right in their lifetime. You might even think that they, in fact, have some chance at pulling off a veritable moon landing of becoming the plumbing of local commerce. There are lots of worthy companies out there: Square, Google, Amazon, PayPal, LivingSocial, Facebook. They all have some kind of shot at local commerce. But, it's just not rational — just not fair, not an impartial reading of the facts, to say that Groupon isn't also in that conversation. We can spend our time hating on Instagram for selling at a $1B w/14 employees & no revenue, and Groupon for its variety of sins, or we can choose to live up to our individual human potential, and dare to try and be great. It's much easier (and more fun) to judge people, but I think Roosevelt was on to something:
— * The two people most under fire are Jason and Andrew. I understand. I don't really bring up Andrew in this post. It's a shame that very few people in the Valley have gotten to know Andrew. He's one of the most talented people I've ever come across. Most impressive? He's been on a massive up/down ride and he's always been almost inhumanly even-keeled about it. Equally impressive is how fast he learns. I heard from someone who was there in "The Point" days about how much Andrew still had to learn about business/management then. His instincts, and how fast he learned, was absolutely amazing. He's not perfect (when he gets a pet project in his teeth, he can't let it go), but NO ONE is. What he is: ridiculously talented. When I found a company (now or years in the future), I'll gladly take Andrew's money and bizarrely creative brain. For all the shit he takes, you should especially worry if Andrew isn't running Groupon. **For those of you about to freak out: relax. I ran as a Democrat for Congress in 2010. So: I kid, I kid. *** Bill Gurley talks about moats in one of the best ever posts by a VC when he calls out that not all revenue is created equal. Though I agree w/his post completely, though we have a general disagreement on Groupon. ****But what does it say about the company? Probably that they went public too soon. This is a totally new category that has no precedent, no history for modeling. As customer cohorts age, and as they experiment with new deal categories and types, refund rates could have pretty large changes. This doesn't do well for predictability, forecasting, or investor comfort, but that's part of the deal for new businesses. I don't believe that has anything to do with accounting shenanigans or other kind of scary stuff. No doubt internal controls need work. It takes time, and for the longest time, Groupon was a rocket ship where the company was just trying to hang on internally and with t he international sprawl, even harder. Internal controls are critical, the company knows that (see management profiles) and now must play catch up. *****In fact, I told my mom not to buy Groupon. She's retired, and Groupon is just too high-risk, high-reward. They could win local commerce and have a market cap that's easily 2-3 times what it is today or end up with one that's well below where it is. And no doubt, just being public creates more noise and scrutiny (why I'm writing this) and the pressure for short-term profits. Groupon's success, in my opinion, will be entirely determined by its ability to prioritize building long-term relationships and value for merchants. I'm not the smartest, but I'm guessing that some amount of this comes directly at the expense of short-term revenue. In fact I'm more concerned about the company over-optimizing for short-term at the expense of long-term — in the forms of focusing on quarterly earnings.The stock market is an awful insane, childish short-term optimizing machine, so just the fact that the company is public is something I dislike. Special thanks to Ben Casnocha, Avichal Garg, and Andrew Chen for reading and giving feedback. This post was originally published on Yalamanchili’s blog Surya Says.
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| Microsoft Needs Your Help: Promises Free Software In Return For Windows 8 Feedback Posted: 13 Apr 2012 12:58 PM PDT  With Windows 8 getting ever closer to its release date, Microsoft today announced that it is looking for volunteers to join its invite-only feedback program for active Windows 7 and Windows 8 Consumer Preview users in the U.S. In return for providing feedback to Microsoft – both by sending the company data or by filling out surveys – participants who stay in the program for more than four months will be eligible for “free software and Xbox games such as Microsoft Office 2012, Kinect Disneyland, and Forza Motorsport 4.” In the announcement today, Microsoft communications manager Brandon LeBlanc stresses that this is not meant to be a way to submit bug reports. Instead, the idea here is to help Microsoft “build better software by getting a broader understanding of your perceptions and experiences with our products.” It’s somewhat odd that Microsoft would choose this time to highlight this program. The Windows Feedback Program, after all, has been running for years already. Indeed, the sign-up for the Feedback Program is from 2009. While the sign-up form specifically mentions that volunteers will also be asked to provide feedback about Windows Live, including Hotmail and Messenger, today’s announcement puts the emphasis on Windows 7 and 8. Chances are that the company is mostly making this appeal today because it is looking for more data about the Windows 8 user experience (a user experience that could definitely still use some work). It feels like it is rather late in the Windows 8 development cycle to ask for this kind of data now, though.
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| Nicholas Sparks On Using Tech To Write Books, Make Movies, And Keep A Creative Edge Posted: 13 Apr 2012 12:40 PM PDT 
We were not the only geek-friendly stop on his visit to the area. Last night he held a screening of The Lucky One at Twitter’s downtown San Francisco offices, at 1pm PT today he’s hosting a Google+ hangout to answer fans’ questions in real time, and later this afternoon he’s heading down to Facebook’s new headquarters in Menlo Park, California. In general, Sparks said, he’s using his trip here to really dig into the latest in social media and tech and see how he can bring what he learns back to his own work. Check out the video above to watch Sparks talk about how the Internet has changed the process of researching — and promoting — books and movies, the math formula he uses to stay productive, how the creative process of writing a book is similar to what a startup does, why a little bit of online procrastination can be good for you, how he combats writer’s block, and lots more.
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| How The Pebble Smart Watch Hit $2 Million On Kickstarter [Q&A] Posted: 13 Apr 2012 12:18 PM PDT  The Pebble smart watch – a clever little device that connects to your iPhone or Android device and, oddly enough, tells the time – was a twinkle in the eye of founder Eric Migicovsky just a few weeks ago. Now the product has reached $2 million in funding. And if that weren’t enough, InPulse, the company that makes the Pebble, only ever asked for $100,000 over the course of the entire project. It’s not only a testament to the watch itself, which from what I’ve seen is pretty damn cool, but a testament to the power of Kickstarter and crowd-funding in general. We decided to have a little chat with Mr. Migicovsky to figure out how this incredible success story came to be. Here’s what we learned: TechCrunch: Tell us about the team. Who are you guys and how did you come together on this? Eric Migicovsky: The core of the team is from the University of Waterloo. I studied system design engineering there. The Pebble is one of those classic four-year/overnight success stories. We had been working on smart watches for four years, but things have taken off in the last couple days. I had the idea about four years ago, while I was studying industrial design in Europe. I’m a big cyclist and wanted to be able to see what was happening on my phone without having to take it out on my bike. I wanted access to emails, texts, and calls without potentially dropping an expensive phone. So… I built a prototype, got some friends aboard the team, and then after we graduated, we just kept working on it. In 2011 we launched InPulse, our first watch, and we got accepted into Y-Combinator. We moved from Waterloo to The Valley at the end of 2011. Pebble is basically the evolution of InPulse. We have a ton of amazing customers and users that have been giving us feedback on what it’s like to use the watch, and so we’ve taken what we’ve learned — people want to run apps on their watch, be able to customize the digital watch face, etc. — and went back to the drawing board. That led to a watch that supports iPhone and Android with an e-paper screen. This means it looks great in sunlight and has excellent battery life (7 days). TC: What led you to the idea of a watch in the first place? EM: I like the idea that a watch is something that people wear on their body. It’s a personal object that they wear all the time. My thinking is: if you can succeed in making something people will wear every single day, you know you’re doing something right. TC: What do you think caused people to fund you so quickly? Were you surprised? EM: We were pretty surprised, yes. We had set our mark for $100,000 over the entire length of the project. An Engadget article spurred the first bit, but when we woke up on Wednesday morning and saw that we had hit our funding mark within two hours that was pretty amazing. TC: There have been a lot of smart watches and many have failed. Why make this one? Why now? EM: There are definitely a couple of competitors in the market. I think that everyone is iterating, and we’re simply iterating faster than anyone else. We have a smaller team, which gives us the ability to respond to customers needs faster and create software that people want. There are only six people on the team right now, so we’re pretty tiny. And we’re closer to our customers. We respond to emails within hours — I’ve personally responded to thousands — and we even go to grab beers with our customers to see how they use the product in their everyday lives. TC: What’s next for Pebble? EM: We kind of have our work cut out for us right now. We’ve got a pretty good manufacturing plan in place. We didn’t predict this in any way, but we have a plan in place for a large manufacturing run. We’ve already ordered components, and they’ll be ready for when we go into production. TC: What advice would you give to people using Kickstarter to get funded? EM: It’s like any other marketing effort. It’s not easy; you have to put a lot of effort into it. We spent weeks working on just the Kickstarter page, months maybe. We wanted to make sure that we conveyed our value proposition very well, so we focused on the customization angle. In order to jumpstart a project like this, we weren’t just looking to sell it. We were looking to build a community. We made sure we had a hacker special on the page to get people thinking about apps we could write for the watch. One thing we wanted to focus on with Kickstarter was our actual product, the Pebble. Other projects have extraneous stuff like t-shirts and buttons. We think that’s cool, and have even backed projects like that, but we wanted to focus on delivering an amazing watch. We focused on Pebble.
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| Apple Patents A Tool Allowing Non-Developers To Build Apps Posted: 13 Apr 2012 12:01 PM PDT  If you think the iOS app ecosystem is big now, as it pushes some 600,000 apps available for iPhone and iPad, just imagine how big it could become if Apple made good on this newly filed patent application titled “Content Configuration for Device Platforms.” The application describes a way for non-developers to create iOS apps using a simple, graphical interface. Whoa. Of course, it’s just a patent application, and Apple files tons of these things. So you can’t point to it and call out what it describes as a confirmed, forthcoming feature for the iOS platform. But an Apple-provided DIY app building tool does makes some sense in terms of a way to envision the future of mobile computing. Remember, there was once a day when only “webmasters” could set up and maintain webpages. Now everyone just starts a Tumblr to share their thoughts with the world. Why shouldn’t everyone have the opportunity to try their hand at app creation, too? Obviously, non-programmers today can build apps through the use of third-party app building services, but most mainstream users don’t know about those. Apple introducing a basic app builder of its own would serve to raise awareness about the existence of these kinds of tools. Specifically, the patent app (unearthed by Appleinsider this week) describes something of a “WYSIWYG” (What you see is what you get) system for app building, stating the need to make app building more broadly accessible. Reads the application:
Apple’s proposed authoring tool would provide a series of templates, allowing users to insert various actions and animations, like a “pan to view” function or purchase function for a checkout screen, for example. Notably, the application describes the apps it would create as able to work on various screen sizes. Although the patent app doesn’t quite confirm the existence of an Apple television, it does say that there have historically been challenges in developing apps for different screens:
It goes without saying that there would be some issues to overcome in implementing a system like this – after all, the App Store has rules about the apps it approves and Apple’s staff curates submissions to keep out the spam. But who’s to say that in some far-flung distant (or not so distant) future, there won’t be a way for users to exchange self-built apps amongst each other, sans App Store intervention? That would be an ideal way for people to build and share apps serving a temporary need, for example, like one created for a hastily thrown together meetup or event. It could also allow people to create their own personal apps which they would only share with a small circle of friends – think baby announcements, wedding apps, vacations photos, etc. Publishing these non-professional apps to the greater App Store could be an optional final step in the creation process, perhaps. As for the DIY app makers already out there, while such a system would compete with their offerings to an extent, Apple’s validation of the space would mainly serve to help their businesses grow by essentially providing free marketing about the possibilities. Now all we need is a whole new user interface for our iOS devices themselves. Given that Apple has sold 316 million cumulative units of of year-end 2011, these sad, little app folders won’t be able to keep up with all the apps created by this possible DIY app explosion.
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| Posted: 13 Apr 2012 11:37 AM PDT  Updated. Coincidence, or conspiracy? It’s a classic question that gets brought up when the details of any intriguing story start to surface. And some industry insiders are asking it in relation to the antitrust charges being brought against Apple and a group of book publishers over alleged collusion on the pricing of e-books. One fact in particular I’m hearing chatter about is that Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, the Seattle-based law firm that was the first to file charges regarding an alleged e-book price-fixing cabal back in August 2011, is very close neighbors with Amazon, the e-commerce giant that is said to be the chief corporate victim of the alleged Apple/publisher collusion. The thing is, it’s not just the city of Seattle that Hagens Berman and Amazon have in common. They literally share an address. Since mid-2010, Hagens Berman has been headquartered inside 1918 Eighth Avenue, a sleek 36-story skyscraper in downtown Seattle’s Denny Regrade neighborhood. In March of 2011 it got a new neighbor: Amazon started leasing out a very sizable chunk within 1918 Eighth — some 460,000 square feet — for its own downtown Seattle pied-a-terre in March 2011. Just a few months later, Amazon was reportedly looking to expand its footprint in the building by some 300,000 additional square feet. Amazon now accounts for more than two-thirds of the entire building’s office space, according to the Wikipedia entry on 1918 Eighth. Now, in an expansive and modern building like 1918 Eighth, it’s very unlikely that folks at Hagens Berman and Amazon share a water cooler or anything. But either way, the proximity is something that’s being snarked about — especially among those in the tech and publishing industries who feel the antitrust claims are misguided in the first place. For more than a year now, Hagens Berman has been a whistleblower on the alleged e-book price fixing situation in general. It was the first law firm to file a class action lawsuit concerning the case in August 2011, a complaint that the firm said was some six months in the making. Late last year, a U.S. District judge selected Hagens Berman to serve as co-lead counsel in a multidistrict class action lawsuit regarding the e-book antitrust claims. And this week, the whole situation entered a national stage when the United States Department of Justice filed its own antitrust lawsuit against Apple and five major book publishers. The DOJ complaint is separate from the one Hagens Berman is co-leading — but it is understood to be an “incalculable boon” to Hagens Berman’s cause. Apple, for its part, has officially denied the DOJ’s collusion charges, saying in a statement to AllThingsD that its work toward “breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry” was done fair and square. Three of the five publishers charged in the case — HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette — have already agreed to settle with the DOJ. Macmillan and Penguin have each professed innocence and vowed to fight the case in court. It’s important to stress that Hagens Berman is not working on behalf of Amazon in its suit against Apple and the publishers — it is working on behalf of consumers, in a class action suit. But it’s clear that Amazon certainly stands to benefit from the charges against Apple and the accused publishers. And the very fact that the first law firm to blow the whistle on the case is literally so close to the case’s largest potential corporate beneficiary is raising a few eyebrows. We’ve reached out to Hagens Berman for comment, and will update this post with any additional information we receive. UPDATE: Hagens Berman partner Steve Berman sent this comment via email:
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| HTC’s Entry-Level Golf Smartphone Spotted In Leaked Press Image Posted: 13 Apr 2012 11:33 AM PDT  HTC's high-end efforts have garnered plenty of love lately (and rightfully so, I think), but devices like the once-mysterious HTC Golf prove that the company isn’t through churning out lower-tier handsets. The Ice Cream Sandwich-powered Golf's existence was first revealed a few months ago when a not-terribly-great picture taken with its five-megapixel rear camera started making the rounds, but no one had any idea what the actual device would look like. Naturally, Team PocketNow did their thing and managed to get their hands on what they claim is the first press image of the device. Despite being a lower-end device, the Golf — which may soon be renamed the Wildfire C — seems to retain some of the design DNA seen in its flashier One series brothers, with a white frame that’s quite reminiscent of the top-tier One X. While it certainly seems handsome enough on the outside, the internals may leave a little to be desired — PocketNow's sources reaffirm earlier claims that the Golf will ship with a single core processor clocked under 1GHz, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of internal storage. Like many of HTC’s recent handsets, the Golf will also come equipped with the Beats Audio profile though at this point the special headphones are probably out of the question. As an Ice Cream Sandwich device running HTC's Sense 4.0 UI though, the little guy is also privy to a few special treats, namely the 25GB of free Dropbox storage. The spec sheet is decidedly of last year's vintage, but HTC is playing it smart with this little guy. As the HTC buffs among you may know, the company announced their intention to focus on “hero” devices this year, and Golf/Wildfire C is poised to be a worthy successor to HTC's popular line of low-cost, low-spec Wildfire handsets.
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| Facebook Ups The Mobile Ante Again; Buys Mobile Loyalty, Rewards Startup TagTile Posted: 13 Apr 2012 11:23 AM PDT  This just in: Facebook has closed another deal, and as with Instagram it’s in mobile again. They have bought TagTile, a mobile-based customer loyalty, management startup, for an undisclosed sum. After the $1 billion, 40-million user blockbuster of Instagram, this looks like a return to the smaller, acqhire buys that Facebook is more known for making. "We're happy to confirm that TagTile's founders are joining Facebook, and that Facebook is acquiring substantially all of the company's assets. We've admired the engineering team's efforts for some time now and we're excited to have them join Facebook,” the social network said in an emailed statement. TagTile’s statement notes that Facebook is acquiring “substantially all of our assets.” It is not taking on any new customers but for now it will continue its service. The news comes the same day that Facebook kicked of a beta of a new offers service. We wrote about TagTile last October when it launched a pilot program, having been a TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Alley participant. Like Square, the service gives away free hardware that lets merchants use the service, which works with an app either on Android or iOS and lets users collect and redeem loyalty points, coupons and other rewards a merchant wants to offer. The hardware, a little box-like object, is a stop-gap solution until NFC becomes more widespread. Abheek Anand, co-founder, told us today that pilot has been going “really well.” Main customers on the pilot so far have been a mix of small- and medium-sized businesses, along with franchises, who either use the product to link up with their existing reward schemes, or to create one where it has not existed before. What’s notable is that he says engagement has been impressive: he claims that the best comparison is with check-in services, and typically TagTile has found its app has been used anywhere between two and ten times more for interactions on a per-merchant basis than Foursquare. Given that Facebook has just today (what a coincidence!) started a beta of a new offers program, you can imagine all of these pieces fitting together longer term — a fuller realization of the e-commerce/loyalty/social shopping that Facebook has been chipping away at for at least a year already. The service lets merchants put discounts and offers on their Facebook pages, which can be redeemed either through Facebook’s mobile app at the point of sale, or via an email. But with something like TagTile, you can see how Facebook can become more integrated into the actual transaction process, not just in the creation of the offer. The new offers beta — first announced at the fMC marketing event this past February — is starting with a handful of clients in the U.S. It will also extend to a limited number of businesses in Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Turkey, but is not yet going fully global or opening to all U.S. businesses. More details here. Last point: A while ago, I wrote a post looking at the patents and patent applications that Facebook currently owns. Among them was a trove specifically related to e-commerce, which could either have been there for defensive purposes (buying in areas against where competitors have business) or for actual future products (like, say, mobile commerce solutions). As it turns out, TagTile also has patents that now become Facebook’s — although Anand wouldn’t say what they covered.
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